As a writer yourself, I was wondering which games you think have excellent stories. In particular, I haven't played any Final Fantasy games before, so I've been gathering opinions of people who have, as to which one I should go for.

To be honest, I wouldn't call the stories in any of the Final Fantasy games "excellent". They're very simplistic, often confusing, and often incomprehensible to a Western audience. I don't play FF games for their stories, but rather for their intriguing and graphically stunning worlds, spell effects, monsters, and epic scope. Most importantly they are (were) fun to play. Some of the characters in FF games are annoyingly clichéd, or just plain...annoying. The protagonist in FFX is a good example of how not to design, write, and cast a lead. He's just an ass. A complete and total ass. I'm embarrassed by the things he says and does. I don't want to play him.

The best of the "modern" FF games is probably number VII (for the PSOne), although I have a soft spot for number IX (again for the PSOne) also. I'm not very happy with X (PS2), mostly because of the extremely annoying lead (see above), increasingly linear gameplay, and somewhat dull setting and story.

Games with excellent stories? Most of the LucasArts games of yore; Day of the Tentacle in particular, but also Full Throttle, the first two Monkey Island games, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis...most of those classic adventures. They're comedies, but good stories nonetheless. Sierra's first Gabriel Knight game had an excellent, adult story, but the sequels got progressively worse (IMO). Shenmue and Shenmue II for the Dreamcast (and now Xbox) have good, emotional, spiritual, personal stories; the first one in particular. Impressive stuff. Deus Ex -- another prime example of a good story, although I'm not a huge fan of the voice-over work on that title. And let's not forget Eternal Darkness, on the GameCube. Great story. Epic, spooky stuff. What else? Uh...I'm sure I'm forgetting lots and lots of good titles. Point is, there's a lot of games with excellent stories out there, across all genres -- even first-person shooters (Half-Life had a good story, as did Halo). How's that for an answer?

Another thing, you're watching TLOTR just by yourself in December??!!

I sure hope not! I bought six tickets, so I'm counting on company.  ¶ 17:07